Hitting 20...

“So, how are you feeling now that you’ve reached 20 and not being a teenager anymore?”

“Heh… I feel very old somehow…”

Well, that was a question asked to me by myself, and it kinds of summarized how I feel of reaching my birthday yesterday. Somehow I still just can’t take in that I am 20 years old… and I thought only females have the problem of admitting their real age.

Time just passes too quickly… and back then I can’t believe I always wanted time to pass as fast as possible: when I was young and still not schooling, I couldn’t wait to be older as I wanted to go to school like my elder brother; when I was 8-9 I still remembered I wanted to be 10 years old as quickly as possible in order to use a stationary set (in which I couldn’t wait then as it seemed to take forever); besides that during primary school I wanted to be 18 so I could watch violent movi… err… I mean, able to enter the club gym and use their equipments (then again, though I have already reached the age limit, I have never used the gym).

But during secondary school, I started to not want time to pass quickly anymore. Well, I guess one reason was because I dreaded to take the PMR and SPM exams then, tsk tsk, and then there were some group of friends that were so fun and I didn’t want to part from that class. Of course, there are still some reasons in which I wanted time to pass quickly like learning how to drive at 17 or going to college (or when classes are just so freaking boring), but it wasn’t that great of a feeling compared to the younger days. It was more like you are thinking: “aiyah, how good it is to be 17-18” but then after 30 seconds you forget about it and go on with the thing you were doing.

Hmmm, now that I think about it, perhaps the one reason why nowadays I always have this “don’t want time to pass by quickly” thought is because I don’t have anything to look forward to and distract me. During the schooling days, there are a lot of things to look forward too and you just want time to pass by like Saturday movie outings, class trips, getting by boring classes, hoping weekend comes to go to the cyber café, praying that tuition classes ends before the teacher finds out you are sleeping, youth camp, the long holidays, etc. Of course, occasionally there are times when you want time to stop like when you’re enjoying your term break and don’t want to go back to school again (or perhaps you want it to go by quickly so that you can meet your friends at school again, which I seldom have; miss friends, yes, but miss school? No way!) or at the end of the year during Christmas when you start thinking how a year has gone by so fast. With all the activities it leaves you no time to think about how time just goes by like that. Hmmm... hoping now that I can start doing those activities again so I won't need to keep thinking that I am old ha-ha!

Sigh… going to really miss the days when I could act foolish and actually not feel stupid. Now I must watch and makes sure I look mature enough so the younger kids won’t go “what kind of kor kor is this” (though I doubt I will be called kor kor though, maybe uncle seems more like it). That, and the fact that when I actually finish my treatment I need to start bearing many different responsibilities which I never wanted to. Whenever I see my friends studying so hard for university it makes me think: “Wah! Where are the good old days when we study only during the last second?” But then I remembered that we aren’t that kind of teens anymore, and have actually started to think more maturely. Ha-ha, not that it’s a bad thing, in fact that’s the attitude that everyone should have when they are still schooling, but it does make me feel how we have change. Maybe that’s what makes a youth anyway, people that makes all the dumb mistakes so you wouldn’t make them anymore *chuckle*. Sigh, being a kid sure is nice.

Thank God that at least this year I can stay at home and relax on my birthday! Last year I got admitted to the hospital on the very day it was my birthday. And the year before that I had a gum ulcer and couldn’t enjoy eating though it was my birthday then ha-ha!

Ah, then again, pill eating starts today, praying to God that I won’t be feeling that bad throughout the entire week. Oh, and thanks once again to everyone that wished me!

Finally, always wanted to say this to myself:

“Happy Birthday dude”

P.S: Thanks Darren for waking me up from my sweet sleep in the morning on my birthday! Nah, thanks for the call and greeting me all the way from UK, ha-ha.

Thanking God again...

Woooaaahhhhkaaaay……

Went to the doctor’s clinic on Wednesday with a heavy heart, thinking that it was going to be the start of three long terrible weeks, but somehow when I went there the doctor said that my white cell count was still too low to start eating the pills. Doctor said he doesn’t want me to get an infection, so it will be better not to start just yet.

Immediately the nauseous feeling I had when I went to the doctor disappeared…

The weather suddenly seemed so good…

I could hear the birds chirping oh so sweetly…

Alright, to get to the point, I was really happy! Though, I didn’t have another weeks break as the doctor asked me to start eating the pills on Monday (well, he didn’t pick the date, but asked me to choose one of the days… of course I chose the day in which I could delay the most) for around that time my white cell count should have went up to a safe level, still thank God for the gracious extra time that I could have to relax more! And there I was thinking it will never happen, so got to thank God twice as much for this precious grace ha-ha!

Now, I am starting to feel a little guilty for having so much time ‘off’ in suffering…

That… and having time off makes me worry a lot on how I am going to use my time wisely. Not that I have to plan real hard though, since I am still better left at home in order not to get an infection like the shingles that I had last time, but the mind still keeps thinking of ways to use it properly so that I won’t regret when Monday comes, when I can’t have so much freedom anymore in my daily activities, which I’ll start telling myself why I didn’t do this, or eat that, when I was still okay.

Bah… but who cares, guess I’ll just enjoy for now, and think later!

Jokingly saying a prayer...

Sigh… time just passes so quickly when you are enjoying yourself…

Last Wednesday I was supposed to start eating my chemotherapy pills, which I was in no way ready for. Just didn’t seem to have a long enough break before I start my ‘hard work’ of going through the side effects again. And if it’s just one week I wouldn’t mind, buy THREE!!! Gosh, that’s going to be real tough.

So, the night before that Wednesday, I was reading my e-mail and got a message from Pastor Siew Teng asking if I was available to play the bass guitar on Easter Sunday. I was like: “Ah, darn, last week when I was healthy and alright, I missed the chance to play the bass guitar for worship simply because I was too lazy to check my e-mail, and this week I’ll miss the chance to play again because I won’t feel too well after eating the pills.” Was feeling really disappointed then, but seeing that there isn’t anything that I can do, just decided to pray and go to sleep and be prepared to face tomorrow.

I prayed to God that the blood results would be good when I do my check up at the doctor’s tomorrow; that there wouldn’t be any scary news that I need to know; and that through God’s grace the side effects of the pills wouldn’t be too bad. And before I was going to end the prayer, I jokingly prayed to God that if it’s possible, please let me skip eating this pills for one week… and to make it look like a proper request I decided to tell God that I wanted to skip the pills so that I would be able to serve as the bassist for the coming Easter Worship.

And what do you know... to my surprise on Wednesday, as I had my check up with the doctor, he told me my white cell count was not good enough to start eating the pills just yet, and needed to wait for another week at least to let the white cells recover to normal. I was like… woah!!! Thank God for answering that request!!! Normally even with a low cell count the doctor would still sometimes ask me to go on in order to not delay the schedule. Then again, it really is ironic that just a few months ago I was praying so hard that my white cell count would go up just by 0.5 percent, and now I was celebrating because the white cell count was low, bah. Was really happy then, but apparently there’s was another girl there who also had leukemia and she needed a bone marrow transplant as the cancer cells was still present in her bone marrow even after going through chemotherapy. Mom shared the gospel to her that day and told her that in Christ there’s still hope… from what I’ve heard mom told me that she did receive Christ later on. Thank God for that too!

As I got back home that day feeling really happy since I’ve manage to escape eating the pills for another week, I kind of had the thought to skip the night’s Easter worship practice and just laze around at home instead. Yeah, talk about showing my gratitude to God. But then I remembered that though I did jokingly ask God for that favor, since God “seriously” did grant me that request, I will need to “seriously” fulfill my part of the deal too, ha-ha. It did make me think how fast we could actually forget about God’s grace and love.

With pill eating out of the way, I was able to go for the Good Friday service, the Saturday revival service and the Easter Sunday worship at ease. I was really amazed and impressed at how Pastor Chuah could get a backup sermon to preach for Good Friday when the invited speaker lost his way in Kuala Lumpur. Well, I did prepare my English oral presentation for college just 30 minutes before it actually started, but that was only for a less than 10 minute speech, but 1 hour plus? Me and the youths were joking that maybe he got the sermon well prepared from Wikipedia at the sermons section, ha-ha. The Saturday’s revival and Easter Sunday message was by the invited speaker and though his message for both occasions was about “vision” (not the kind where God talks to you in dreams, the other one) by looking through the disciple Peter, I learnt more about how the first few disciples followed Jesus instead (realized that Peter didn’t first met Jesus in the fishing boat incident, but was called by Andrew to meet Jesus first as stated in the book of John). The whole time I was flipping my bible between Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, just to know where he got the verses from and why did the pastor said that it was like that. Reminded me how much I still didn’t know about the bible. Ah! Though the Sunday Easter worship went well, I really need to improve my bass guitar again, as I was completely lost while playing two of the worship songs… thank God that no one really pays much attention to the bass guitarist anyways, ha-ha.

Alas, as I have said, when you are enjoying your time it just passes so quickly. And as I am writing this it’s already Wednesday. Don’t think I would be able to avoid eating the pills with any kind of excuse to the doctor, or God at that matter ha-ha. Guess I would only be able to pray that God would lessen, better yet take away the side effects, so that it would not mess up my daily activities.

Bah, and there I was thinking that only homework and assignments could be procrastinated. Thank God for the one week break, at least I feel more prepared to eat the pills.

Let the three long weeks begin! Oh yeah, and happy belated Easter, where Jesus has risen indeed!

P.S: Was editing my post while watching Manchester United thrashing A.S Roma, bet my elder brother is rolling on the floor with laughter now, ha-ha.